A budget and cash flow forecast is a powerful tool for managing a farm business. Just by producing a budget it makes you think about the future direction of your business and what your targets should be. Then, by periodically monitoring against budget, you know whether the business is on track. Lenders are also reassured where budgets are in place. The Andersons Centre’s consultancy team is highly skilled in producing budgets and cash flow forecasts together with the client which are accurate and practically sound. Our services include:

• Gross Margin and Overhead Analyses
• Profit Forecasts
• Balance Sheet Analyses
• Cash Flow Budgets and Monitoring
• Enterprise Sensitivity Analyses
• Partial Budgets

In conjunction with planning for the future, it is important to examine the historical performance of your business. This enables us to really understand you and your business aims so that we can help you to achieve your targets. It will identify areas for improvement, the changes that may be required and the benefits that will result. This includes explaining how output and cost structures will change as a result of practical changes on-farm. This ensures plans are realistic and credible.

Comparing yourself against the best farms is an essential part of continuous improvement. We work with a range of industry-leading businesses which enables us to accurately benchmark your business’ performance. In addition to benchmarking against industry averages, we compare against the top-performing businesses (e.g. top 10%) to ensure costs of production are as low as possible.

Many businesses are unaware of how their performance compares to similar farms. As a result, they do not appreciate the potential scope for change and improvement. Such initiatives range from changing the farming system entirely to simply identifying small areas of adjustment to reduce certain expenditure, or identifying minor adjustments to improve business output.

In the short-term this may vary from resolving periods of immediate cash flow difficulties to preparing business plans to support new long-term loan applications. Longer-term, it might be dealing with succession and generational change, setting a plan for business growth, or a strategic review of the farming business.

Our consultants can work with you to present a business plan which is financially and practically sound, whilst clearly presented and achievable. We also have the unique advantage of drawing upon the expertise of our business research team to provide up-to-date insights on market and policy developments which gives a much clearer context and direction to long-term business planning.

In addition to general business planning, we also have specialist consultants for your farm enterprise, whether it be arable or livestock farming. For businesses expanding, changing or investing heavily, ensuring that the system is the right one for the farm, and then is run effectively is the key to profitability.

GROW MORE, GRAZE MORE, EARN MORE

Increasing yield from forage from 2,500 litres/cow (UK herd average) to 3,500 litres/cow could save approximately £104/cow/year on feed costs, saving approximately £20,800/herd annually (200 cow herd)*. 

The cost of grazed grass is your cheapest feed at £59/t dry matter, as opposed to silage and concentrate at £96/t and £182/t dry matter respectively.

*Our aim is to increase forage utilisation/hectare and consequently profit/ha which we would benchmark on a litres from forage/ha basis. 

Andersons Pasture Coaching assists livestock farmers in PLANNING, COACHING and REVIEWING grazing strategies in order to maximise grazed grass growth, utilisation and therefore profitability.  Our goal is to coach the skills into you so you can improve the profitability of your business.

PLANNING

• Grazing infrastructure
• Dry matter feed budgets (grass, wintering and supplementation budgets)
• Yield from forage targets
• Spring/autumn rotation planning (turnout and housing plans)

COACHING

• Understanding the benefits of pasture management
• Online grass management software training
• Interactive farm walks
• Weekly phone calls to aid decision making
• Wet weather/drought strategies

REVIEWING

• Dairy costing (with full yield from forage calculations)
• Paddock dry matter production (reseeding/soil health reviews)
• Actuals Vs. Targets

Our consultants offer experienced knowledge of grazing systems both financially and practically, through their own farming business.

As well as providing advice on a one-to-one basis we work with groups of farmers through the facilitation of discussion groups in the following areas: –

• Beef and sheep production
• Crop production management
• Milk and feed predictions
• Grassland management
• Livestock nutrition and health advice
• Machinery and labour profiling

This is a route for cost-effective consultancy and, working through a group, the members are able to offer encouragement and spur each other on to make improvements.